"Once upon a time, in a land far away, there lived a nameless monster. The monster was dying to have a name."

In 1986, life was good for Japanese neurosurgeon Kenzo Tenma. He was an accomplished doctor living in Germany, had the favors of the hospital director, a hot fiancee (daughter of the same director), and a promising future. But one day, the guilt of primarily attending to the wealthy patients and leaving poorer people in need of his skills drives him to first operate on a child who was hurt in the murder of his adoptive parents rather than the mayor of Dusseldorf. As a result, the child lives, the mayor dies in the hands of less talented surgeons, and Tenma is demoted by his superiors and dumped by his fiancee. Even though his life is now in ruins, Tenma still believes that he did the right thing.

Suddenly, the hospital directors that demoted Tenma die in very mysterious circumstances, leaving a vacant position that only he can fill. At the same time, the boy that Tenma operated on escapes from the hospital with his catatonic twin sister. Although none of the deaths can be directly attributed to the good doctor, a certain Inspector Lunge is not very convinced of his innocence.

Nine years later, Tenma is still working in the same hospital when a criminal patient escapes in terror because he doesn't want to be killed by a person he calls the "Monster." Tenma follows him to a parking garage, only to see him mercilessly shot. His horror increases when he sees who the killer is: the same boy he operated on nine years ago, now a young adult. Johan Liebert, the boy in question, confesses that he was the one who killed the directors years ago as a way to give him thanks, and abandons the scene leaving the doctor alive.

Tenma, horrified to find that he is responsible for the existence of such a monster, abandons his work and his life, and devotes himself to finding Johan again and killing him once and for all. Following Johan's blood trail, however, becomes tricky and absorbing, and as Tenma's hunt becomes riddled with clues from the boy's childhood, finding the truth about Johan's past becomes as imperative as finding Johan himself. The quest is further complicated when Johan's crimes are ascribed to Tenma, and Lunge, convinced beyond a doubt that Tenma is the perpetrator, begins a chase of his own.

The series, written and drawn by Naoki Urasawa, one of the most popular mangakas in the business, has received several major awards and substantial critical acclaim; it is painstakingly drawn and thoroughly researched, with an extensivecast and a complex, multi-layered story. The adaptation is almost identical to the original, differing only in several scenes that were cut and several that were added.

The anime was a fan-favorite on Sci Fi Channel's Ani-Mondays block. Unfortunately, it is no longer available on Hulu, Netflix (subbed), or the Manga Entertainment app for Xbox 360 (dubbed) as Viz Media dropped the license. Fortunately the Australian company Siren Visual has licensed the anime for full release, dubbed and all in its respective country.

Guillermo Del Toro has been trying to get it adapted into a live-action series for some time. HBO has turned it down, so time will tell if it ever comes to fruition.

Always a Bigger Fish: Nina is saved from Professor Geidlitz by Johan. What makes this better is that they were using her as bait to lure Johan in to convince him to lead their group and make "the master race" dominant once again, seeing him as the next Hitler. Anna tried to warn them that Johan didn't care about their cause or any cause. They discover too late that she's correct.

Ambiguous Situation: Richard's death. It's unclear if he threw himself off the roof, got drunk and fell off, or Johan pushed him. Reichwein deduces that the alcohol found with him was a brand he hated, but it's not specified whether any alcohol was found in his system.

Angsty Surviving Twin: Another Monster reveals that Johan and Nina's mother (whose real name is Viera) was herself a twin, but her sister died at birth. Viera's mother always compared her to her dead sister, which is why Viera tried to do her sister's share of everything - and strangely enough, she believed that her sister was in fact alive somewhere, under the name of Anna.

The Antichrist: A major motif in the series.note As mentioned by Tenma, Anna/Nina, and General Wolf, Johan is actually no typical neo-Nazi bigot (in spite of right-wing extremists wanting him to be the next Hitler); believe it or not, he's not interested in being a part of such groups — after all, he works alone and he'll only use minions until he decides to dispose of them when he no longer finds any use for them (he wants to be the last person standing on Earth). However, the fact that he isn't an overt bigot just adds to his scare factor.

Amnesiac Dissonance: Used with two of the main characters and some interesting children's books.

Thanks for killing Heinemann, Johan; Oppenheim and Boyer were pretty despicable too. This is probably the only good thing you've ever done, Johan. But remember: the enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend.

And the corrupt cops in Prague.

The Atoner: Franz Bonaparta as the most obvious example, but also Wolf, Schubert, Rosso, Bernhardt, and many others. Also given inversions and subversions, temporary and otherwise. Atonement and redemption are arguably two of the series' key themes.

Tenma himself could fit the mold fairly well - as kind-hearted as he is, he sees his absolute biggest mistake as being something he alone can fix. And despite numerous opportunities he gets where he could abandon his self-set mission, he refuses every time. Ironically, this trope is the reason Tenma saved Johan in the first place.

Badass Grandpa: Dr. Reichwein, who's able to take down two hoodlums after getting the tar kicked out of him. Lunge counts as well for the epic fight with Roberto near the end.

Bad Boss: Director Heinemann takes credit for Tenma's research and exploits his skills to save rich and influential patients... even if it means letting other patients die. He then does his best to screw Tenma's career over for daring to defy him. He also takes credit for research done by his subordinates.

At the very least, Peter Čapek and the organization he represents may have aspirations to mold Christof into this as a substitute for Johan if the latter proves too unwieldy for them, but according to Christof, the joke is on them, since Christof was merely using the organization to arrange a reintroduction with Johan for himself.

Be careful wishing your boss and his cronies would drop dead out loud — it'll cost you if a certain young boy is in the room when you do it.

Wishing to find out what happened to your twin sibling when you were separated can go very badly wrong for both of you with massive psychological damage.

Wanting to start World War III by finding a charismatic leader with skills? Be careful with that thought...

Wishing to have a saviour to jump in and smash the bad guys who are hurting you and your friends can turn you into something amazing and awesome... but, also downright scary when you have no clue how you did what you did.

Bilingual Bonus: The German and Czech on signs, in documents, and everywhere else is pretty fun for students of the language.

Bittersweet Ending: Everybody who survives the story gets new chances to rebuild their lives again, but where did Johan go after the finale?

The series' favorite method of ending people. Probably justified in that most of the murders are committed by experienced killers who don't like to risk leaving anyone alive. Johan, however, manages to get shot twice in the head by two separate people, neither of whom had much firearms experience. One was a little girl, and the other was a hallucinating alcoholic. It's like his brain is a bullet magnet. A bit of shown their work on that one. Johan is supposedly The Antichrist, and according to some legends about The Antichrist, he is supposed to suffer two head injuries before going on his ultimate rampage.

Martin mocks a guy for not shooting someone in the head. That someone was him.

Bring My Brown Pants: The Baby, as Nina points a gun at him. The Baby is terrified and notes that she is most definitely Johan's sister.

Broken Pedestal: At the start, Tenma greatly looks up to his boss and seems to view him as a father figure. Said boss exploits his surgical skills for media publicity, plays political games that get one of Tenma's patients killed, and screws his career over for daring to defy him.

Nine years later, Tenma still tells his patients about how proud he is to have saved Johan, crediting him for turning his life around. Too bad it's all about to come crashing down...

Another example happens with Jan Suk, who admired a police who actually was corrupt.

Chekhov's Army: Many of the major supporting characters take a few episodes after their introduction before they take an active role in the story.

Chekhov's Gun: Lunge packs a rifle and a pistol before his fight with Roberto. During the fight, he loses the first, but reveals the tiny gun.

Chekhov's Gunman: Wim's father, who is introduced as nothing more than Ruhenheim's town drunk, is the one who ends up shooting Johan, thereby saving Tenma from the Sadistic Choice of either abandoning his ideals or watching Wim die.

Chekhov's Skill: Dr. Reichwein is shown on the jogging track of an indoor gym while mulling over a case. This helps when he chases after two youngsters at a dead sprint.

He is also seen nagging his secretary to remember to lock the office door on her way out. When an unknown man enters later, a quick glance at the lock confirms that he is an intruder, buying him a few precious minutes to plan his escape.

Co-Dragons: Dr. Oppenheim and Dr. Boyer are this to Director Heinemann at the start, with Boyer also being The Starscream to Tenma.

Cry Laughing: Tenma after Dr. Heinemann, Dr. Boyer, and Dr. Oppenheim are murdered and he gets promoted to an even higher position than he had lost. Later on, Johan is implied to have done this after finding out that he wasn't the one who was really sent to the Red Rose Mansion.

A Day In The Lime Light: Very frequent. Chances are, if you're a side character in this series, you'll get your "very own episode" or your "very own series arc". Also an Inverted Trope, in that the title character (if that's how you see Johan, anyway) gets comparatively little air time.

Debate and Switch: Is all life equal? The only thing equal is death? Is it alright to save one, then? Do some people deserve to live more than others?

Defusing The Tykebomb: Mostly played with, though not for laughs: Tenma gets his intervention in early with Dieter, Nina attempts this retroactively with her brother, and Grimmer tries with Pedrov's boys, misguidedly as it turns out.

Despair Event Horizon: Tenma comes close to hitting this by the end of the second episode. It doesn't get much better from there.

Nina comes perilously close near the end, to the point that Tenma has to talk her out of suicide.

Dirty Communists: Played straight. The crimes of neither the East German nor Czechoslovak communist regimes are ever justified and the flashbacks depict them as dark and unfriendly, which pretty much corresponds with the common view of the communist period in Eastern Europe. In a way may have even been taken Up to 11 as the East German regim as portrayed in the story bears a hell lot of similarities to the Nazi one.

Although may be considered Truth in Television, at least to some degree. The East German communist regime was notorious for its ideological devotion to the socialist cause (for instance most of the communist terrorist organizations in the world during the Cold War were funded by East Germany) and it did engage in various experiments tampering with human mind and body. In fact, evidence indicate that right before the fall of communism in Eastern Europe Premier Erich Honecker considered slaughtering the East German protesters, following the example set by the Chinese in Tiananmen Square.

Fan analysis of the real-life analogues for the experiments/abuses depicted in the series, including some actually perpetrated under the Communist bloc, can be found here and here.

Dogged Nice Guy: Lotte is a gender-flipped example. Unfortunately for her, Karl is pretty damn oblivious and she suffers quite a bit over her relationship woes (or the lack of). Jan Suk plays the trope straight, though it's brutually subverted in the fact that the sweet girl that he's been crushing on turns out to be Johan in disguise. There's also Lipsky, who seems to have a thing for Nina, but he ends up in a happy relationship with someone else in Another Monster.

Drowning My Sorrows: Tenma's alibi against charges of Klingon Promotion, complete with public staggering and ranting. Generally a source of trouble elsewhere (Eva, Richard, Martin, and Wim), though not anviliciously so - best beer ever is all part of Grimmer's and Reichwein's positive outlooks. Just be careful with who you drink with.

Dying Moment of Awesome: Muller, who has a pretty epic gunfight to save Nina's life. Considering he killed her foster parents, that was quite the redemption.

Earn Your Happy Ending: Despite almost setting itself up for a Downer Ending, most of the surviving characters definitely end up with this. Lunge gets back in touch with his daughter, Dieter seems to be living happily with Dr. Reichwein, Nina is well on her way to becoming a successful lawyer, and Tenma has joined Doctors Without Borders. Eva kicks her problems and seems to get her life back in order. Even Johan, depending on what you consider a "happy ending", gets one.

Enfant Terrible: While there are various Freudian Excuses given as to why Johan is so incredibly vile and wretched, the most plausible theory out of all of them is that Johan was simply born evil.

Evil Is Not a Toy: So many people try to take advantage and use Johan's evilness for their own means. They all find out, far too late, just how evil Johan is.

Evil Is Petty: Heinemann is all over this. He sabotages Tenma's career purely out of spite, and orders him to be discharged from caring for Johan because he doesn't want Tenma getting the media attention it would bring.

Evolving Credits: The end credits gradually progress through the story, "The Nameless Monster", until the final episode where there's simply a static shot of the empty bed where the supposedly comatose Johan was previously.

Expy: A few characters are based on members of Osamu Tezuka's "Star System". The most obvious is Dr. Reichwein, who is a clear homage to beloved Tezuka character Shansaku Ban, right down to his trademark moustache. Johan also has too many similarities to Yuki Michio from Tezuka's suspense-thriller MW to be coincidence. Dr. Tenma shares his name with Astro Boy's creator, although he's actually closer to Black Jack. Urasawa would later go on to create Pluto, a remake of a story arc from the Astro Boy series.

It would seem that this series has characters resembling to their counterparts from Halloween. Tenma is Loomis, Johan is Michael, and Nina is Laurie.

Fair Weather Friend: Two of Tenma's "friends" at the hospital, Dr. Eisen and Dr. Boyer, are introduced effusively praising Tenma at the start of the first episode. Once Tenma goes against the director, they both turn against him, blaming him for the mayor's death, and Boyer is promoted to Tenma's old position. Boyer also dismisses Tenma as Johan's doctor, and really relishes telling him that.

Fan Disservice: There are several instances, like when a kid searching for his mom ends up in a red light district, sees a prostitute bent over a trashcan servicing a patron, and is paid to watch. Also, Roberto, a very ugly character, who can be seen shirtless. Another being Nina in first half of the Prague arc being revealed to actually be Johan in drag.

The Farmer and the Viper: Johan is probably the quintessential viper, with anyone who does a kindness to him suffering horribly for it. Tenma, the one who saved his life in the first place, gets the very worst of it through the horrible things that Johan does to others in order to repay him.

Gone Horribly Right: Played with. Kinderheim 511 was trying to create emotionless, vicious, Super Soldiers who would kill without qualms. They succeeded, without a result. Everyone became a murderer after killing one another (including the teachers). However, Kinderheim produced the single most ruthless killer in history through discovery, not concoction after Johan's arrival - he being the one that turned the other occupants (students and teachers) against one another.

Gone Horribly Wrong: Petr Capek's attempts to cultivate Johan into the next Hitler end up destroying himself and his organization.

Good Doc, Bad Doc: Preludingly, "Good Doc" Tenma has a moral, blunt face-off over the phone with his "Bad Doc" boss about operating on patients in the order of their arrival; Tenma, after hanging up and against his boss's wishes, follows his conscience and operates on the first patient to arrive, rather than the city mayor. The mayor dies and the first patient lives. Consequentially, his boss demotes him with the guarantee of a plateaued career. Tenma, furious (after having lost his fiance simultaneously), names his "Bad Doc" boss as the worst kind of doctorand declares that "a man like that isn't fit to live". His patient, the one whom he preferred because of order of entry, overhears his saviour's honest confession, and kills his boss on his behalf.

Gratuitous English: The Japanese books have the subtitle of "HORRIBLE STORY". You can probably guess why Viz didn't carry that part over.

Gratuitous German: Well, it's set in Germany, but this trope still applies because they switch off between using Japanese and German honorifics all the time.

Guilt Complex: Two-fold. From the start, Tenma utilizes unprecedented skill as a neurosurgeon nonchalantly; then, the wife of a construction worker - a man who had been brought into the hospital with a serious head injury - accuses him of consequentially killing her husband by operating on a patient who came to the hospital shortly after her husband instead of him (Tenma did so because of orders from his superiors). Tenma receives her words seriously. When he prepares to operate on his next patient, his boss orders him to operate on another patient of higher import than the initial one; Tenma refuses, taking the widow's words as his gospel, and operates on the first patient who - unknown to him - will kill everyone he can. Tenma saves his patient, his boss demotes him for his disobedience, and Tenma (accidentally) allows his psychopathic patient to overhear his complaints about the man who preferred that Tenma save someone else for greed's sake. So, his patient kills his boss. Nine years later, after Tenma receives a promotion because of his former boss's absence, he discovers the patient he saved is responsible for his boss's murder and many more. This double-stroke of guilt is the force that propels Tenma forward for the entire ensuing plot.

Half-Identical Twins : Johan and Nina. Their mother even used to dress Johan up to resemble Anna while the children and she were in Prague. As young adults, Johan masquerades as Nina while he's in Prague, and when Nina gets there, she's confused by his female identity and how everyone seems to know "her."

A major plot point is whether Anna (the twins' mother) dressed up Johan for his sake or for his sister's sake; Tenma ponders on the conclusion that she wanted to get rid of one of them, but who?

Have You Told Anyone Else?: When Jan Suk tells his boss about the corrupt officers on the force, his boss, who is in league with them, responds by telling him not to tell anyone about it. He doesn't pick up on the hint, even though the other corrupt officers told him the same thing.

Heroic B.S.O.D.: Several, particularly after Nina's memory returns. Tenma even has to talk her out of suicide.

Tenma has one right at the start when he learns of the corrupt politics of the hospital. Then another one when his career gets screwed over, complete with Drowning My Sorrows. Then another one during Johan's Establishing Character Moment... You probably shouldn't play a drinking game with this.

Hero Killer: Roberto: if there is a named character in the same space as he, two-times-out-of-three he will kill them. Also, Johan (of course), who guarantees that Anyone Can Die.

Hollywood Psych: Mostly averted, but some questionable approaches to both theory and security are left in place even when officially rejected, e.g. on the issues of dissociative identity disorder, recovered memories, hypnosis, Epiphany Therapy and inferring psychology from physiognomy. Also, "Transcendental Criminal Psychology", Dr. Gillen?

Humans Are Flawed: Tenma and Johan draw polar opposite conclusions from this, testing each other's convictions to the limit.

Incest Subtext: Johan has quite the obsession over Nina. It doesn't help his case that she's probably the only person in the world that he cares about to the extent that people wanting Johan to join their cause have attempted to capture Nina merely because they know how important she is to him. And he's the one who sent the anonymous "romantic" emails to an initially amnesiac Nina, who thinks she's been receiving emails from her "Prince Charming."

I Never Said It Was Poison: Tenma catches on that a couple of police officers work for Johan when one of them calls him "Dr. Tenma", despite the fact that he only introduced himself by name and didn't mention his profession.

Inspector Javert: Lunge, to the point where he takes a vacation to search for Tenma, at least while he thinks that Tenma is guilty, only to finally come to the realization that Johan was the mastermind behind all the murders.

Joker Immunity: In Another Monster, Johan is revealed to be alive three years after the events of Monster.

The Killer in Me: Lunge thinks Tenma has a Split Personality and is committing murders without realizing it since Johan does such a good job of staying invisible that the only clues he is able to find point to Tenma.

Lampshade Hanging: The basic premise of the story is a stretch to believe (though Urasawa pulls it off), and every so often, someone in-story will helpfully point this out, usually at the expense of Tenma (or anyone who has come around to his view). See also Scully Syndrome.

Let Them Die Happy: Defied. At the brink of death, Roberto asks Johan to "show him the landscape of the doomsday." Johan stares gloomily at his shoes and replies, "You can't see it."

Loads and Loads of Characters: The last half of the manga collections include flowcharts with running updates to help you keep track of who's who and how they're related.

More Than Mind Control: Johan's modus operandi. Roberto even seemed in love with him. ("You have such nice eyes. Just like Johan.") He also reminded Roberto of his only memory: how much he loved the hot cocoa served weekly.

Tenma, after he realized what he brought back into the world when he saved Johan and when he thinks he killed Roberto.

Milch, when the guards carrying him and Tenma to prison run over his brother, who was supposed to pretend collapsing on the road in front of the car like Milch had taught him in order to aid their escape.

Myth Arc: It is the re-acquisition and destruction of Johan and the premature cessation of all of his schemes.

No Name Given: So many characters that a major theme in the series is how it is not to have a name. Others live with multiple aliases. A character who goes by a nickname for the entire series dies before his real name is revealed. Johan and Nina's true names were never given; Tenma learns their real names in the end, but the audience doesn't.

Not So Different: Played with a bit regarding Tenma and Johan. Inspector Lunge analyzes Johan's crimes from the perspective that Tenma is the killer and that "Johan" is simply an alternate personality who doesn't really exist. This may seem like a stretch, but his logic isn't as far-fetched as one would think. Lunge reasons that Tenma would have to have a calm, clinical mindset to perform his surgeries — and that is exactly what he reads from Johan's crime scenes. Complicating things is something both characters do have in common: their disconnect from others and society in general. Upon researching Tenma's background and concluding that he doesn't fit into Japanese society, Lunge simply reinforces his view that Tenma's detachment is what allows him to kill without a second thought. In reality, Tenma isn't as much like the real killer as Lunge thinks he is.

Johan and Nina, despite being Polar Opposite Twins, have some key similarities. The most obvious similarities are that both of them have had their sense of identity disturbed at one point or another and have lost much of the childhood memories. Furthermore, while Johan is clearly the most dangerous twin, neither one of them is someone you should mess with. But what's most disturbing is that Nina exhibits a violent inner "monster" of her own when placed under hypnosis. This repressed dark side was created by the very same events that made Johan who he is. The only difference is that those events actually happened to Nina, whereas Johan simply convinced himself that everything happened to him.

Out of all people, thanks in part to his Character Development, Lunge gets angry when Roberto starts talking about his failed marriage and how his grandchild doesn't even know his biological grandfather. . Also, Lunge gets very giddy when he learns that Tenma saved his life. A third one by Lunge bringing a beer to Grimmer's grave as they promised each other in a heartfelt moment, and informing his fellow mourners that he was able to gain contact with his estranged daughter and grandson by email, even recognizing that they barely knew each other at all to begin with.

Grimmer has great difficulty properly expressing emotion, always asking himself what is the appropriate response for this situation. But after watching one of his boys turning towards the dark side, he breaks down and cries, in genuine sorrow and worry.

Only a Flesh Wound: Mostly averted. A few people escape shots to the shoulder, but gut and thigh wounds kill several people. Averted when a character's shoulder's shot which cripples his arm for the rest of the series.

Johan gets shot in the head TWICE and gets away with little neurological damage the first time; not known the second time, though.

Papa Wolf: Near the end of the series, Win's drunk, alcoholic father, shoots Johan in the head when Johan threatens Tenma with Win's life.

Parental Abandonment: There is a mystery behind what happened to the Liebert twins' biological parents. It's implied that their father was killed, but it's later revealed that the mother turns out to still be alive.

Parental Marriage Veto: According to Another Monster, this was a major reason why Eva broke off her engagement with Tenma.

The Patient Has Left the Building: Johan is supposed to be in bed after brain surgery for a while, but Johan sneaks out and takes his sister with him. This however gets on a later stage with the locksmith, which becomes the first victim we see Johan execute in the series (the doctors he murdered are on another issue, that is indirect and as a "favor" to Tenma).

Pet the Dog: Eva has a straight moment, while Johan loves to subvert this for all it's worth. Roberto has a retroactive one.

Photo Op with the Dog: Played straight as far as Heinemann's motivations are concerned. Otherwise, not so much.

The Profiler: Dr. Rudy and Lunge. Several other characters show elements of this as well.

Public Secret Message: A former college classmate needs to get in touch with Tenma, so he puts an ad in the paper that simply says "Let's discuss our memories of cheating" (on tests).

Lunge figures it out pretty easily.

Rare Guns: Tenma uses one of the rarest guns in existence—a one-off prototype sniper rifle which was turned down by the German army for being too expensive. Because the gun never got past the prototype stage, it was never given a true name.

He never fires it at anyone and is presumably destroyed in the library fire.

Rescue Romance: This trope gets a pretty rough time of it, subversion-wise.

Not counting that Tenma rescues a mountain of people, who end up loving Tenma in one way or the other and their main drive is to prevent him from killing Johan or anyone for that matter.

Nina wants to kill Johan primarily for killing her foster parents, though he's also killed almost every adult who has been kind to them since they were children. She later wants to kill Johan so she can prevent Tenma from doing so; this is mutual.

Eva wants Tenma to rot in prison for life out of spitefulness due to the latter dumping her and later attempts to get revenge on Johan after Martin's death. She gets over both.

The twins' mother Anna warns Franz Bonaparta that she will get her revenge on him through her children. Cue almost twenty years and hundreds of corpses; gallons upon gallons of blood on the hands of a man that almost stopped everything because he fell in love with her. Way to stick it up to him, girl!

Reverse Whodunnit: It is clear that Johan Liebert is the murderer. The challenge is to stop him.

Sadistic Choice: Johan presents Tenma with one right at the end, when he holds a gun to Wim's head to force Tenma to choose whether he will shoot Johan against his principles or allow Wim to die. Thankfully, Wim's father's intervention alleviates the necessity for Tenma to take either option.

Scully Syndrome: Virtually epidemic, if understandable. Lunge is the most standout case, but nearly everyone tends to come down with a dose of this when they first hear the main story. Check out the late-arriving cops in Ruhenheim's reaction to Gillen's explanations.

Serial Escalation: Just how bad does a person have to be before you, the viewer, stop sympathizing with them?

Serial Killer: You have three seconds to make a guess who. Though he's far from the only one.

Sexy Discretion Shot: Five minutes into the first episode, Eva lies on top of Tenma and suggests they have sex before the camera pans to the window of their apartment. It's the first and last one in the series.

"Shaggy Dog" Story: A rare non-negative example. Tenma's outlook on humanity by the end is more important than whether or not he kills Johan. When he went all that way to let him live again, one can say it made the buildup pointless, but it showed that Tenma felt that he wasn't necessarily wrong in the first place.

Grimmer and Suk get data of tests conducted at 511 Kinderheim and a tape of an interview with Johan from a safe box numbered 2501.

Shown Their Work: The operation scenes are largely accurate, and the renderings of Germany and the Czech Republic are extremely faithful.

Slasher Smile: While he rarely ever shows emotion, right before he asks Richard if he would like a drink, Johan makes one of the most sadistic slasher smiles imaginable once he realizes that he's broken Richard.

Heinemann smiles in that way many times.

Roberto, in turn, rarely stops smiling.

Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism: The very plot essentially revolves around the question of whether Tenma's idealism and determination to cause good by doing good can survive against Johan's horrifyingly convincing attempts to demonstrate that they're Not So Different and that it's all a Crapsack World in which an act of human kindness is objectively futile.

Social Services Does Not Exist: Justified (sort of) in the Eastern Bloc sections since Bonaparta has connections in high places, but apart from the Lieberts, none of the twins' (or Johan's) foster parents appear to have gone through any formal process, or been caught, even when registering kids in school or reporting them missing to the police.

Dieter chooses to stay with Tenma while on the run; Nina even suggests that he shouldn't be involved, but the damn runt is tremendously stubborn. For a while, Dieter hangs with Tenma to keep him from carrying out his assassination plot against Johan, though later, no adult that he comes across with even considers trying to do something about him.

In case you were wondering, it's Johan, Runge, Braun, and Schubert (as opposed to Shuwald). It's all in the series, they show it on business cards, posters, and such. Tenma's first name, seeing as everything takes place in Germany, is more accurately transliterated without the 'u'. Despite Johan being perhaps less accurate than Johann, it is still the official name used by Urasawa.

Split Personality: Tenma and Nina draw to the conclusion that Johan has two personalities: his normal self and the "monster" inside him. Later, it is revealed that Johan was merely toying with them. Lunge incorrectly deduces that Tenma has a split personality named "Johan" who is committing all the murders.

Split-Personality Takeover: A frequent outcome of applied Bonaparta-style pedagogical experiments, though some of the claims to it are put in question.

Sycophantic Servant: Johan'shuman tools run the gamut of competence, according to his needs, but some, like Hartmann and various incarcerated killers are this, and at most serve to help him spread havoc and misery.

Taking Over the Town: A variation occurs in the finale; Johan plans to give himself the "perfect suicide" where he and some of his accomplices move to a rural town right before it gets isolated by seasonal bad weather, cut off communications with the outside world, provide guns to some of the civilians and then just watch them go crazy with paranoia and kill each other. He is stopped before casualties get too high, but there were still plenty of deaths from it. While this is a case of Kill 'em All rather than trying to take control, the tactics he uses are quite normal for this trope, and in a way, he is taking over the town by infecting them with his own nihilism and hopelessness.

Tastes Like Friendship: Repeatedly, almost to the point of Food Porn, fortunately at a reasonable distance from the horror, and with an eclectic range of cuisines. Also used as a connection with others, rejection of nihilism, or undergoing a Heel–Face Turn. Bad guys are rarely shown enjoying food, and if they do, they tend to be weird about it.

Tenma's favorite meal is a sandwich, and is so because of Nina; even Dieter learns to prepare them and tells Nina that the sandwiches are Tenma's favorite.

Tempting Apple: Johan gives Schubert an apple to convince him that the woodland of his younger days is still there. In the short run, this ingratiates himself with him; in the long run, if he ever finds out otherwise it's likely to contribute into Johan's favourite trick of driving people to suicide.

Thou Shalt Not Kill: Tenma plans on keeping his hands clean until he gets his chance with Johan. And once he does, he changes his mind.

Token Evil Teammate: Otto Heckel, among Tenma's allies, is a thief and helps Tenma out of greed. Also, he unsuccessfully tries to corrupt Dieter.

Tomato in the Mirror: Some of Johan's traumatic memories that were supposed to be his Freudian Excuse were actually based off what Anna told him after she returned from the Red Rose Mansion. Not him.

Too Dumb to Live: The patient in episodes 3 and 4. The former has him run straight into traffic without hesitation, while the latter has him run into an unlit area at night. After seeing a security guard fall down dead. While there's someone really nasty trying to kill him. Surprise surprise, this patient is promptly found and horribly killed. Not to mention Tenma and Johan are having an extended conversation for about five minutes, while the patient just sits there the whole time waiting to be gunned down. Granted, running might not have done him much good, but anything's better than just sitting there.

Richard Braun decides it's a good idea to go out drinking with his lead suspect (who introduced himself by name) without telling anyone. He follows this up by following said suspect up to an abandoned rooftop in the middle of the night, while shouting, "I know what you're up to, kid!" Needless to say, it ends badly.

In the last chapters, Tenma tells a lady to stay where she is, a safe place during a shooting, but she abandons that area and gets shot.

Training Montage: Episode 9 of the anime, in which Tenma learns to use firearms.

Translation Convention: Japanese stands in for mostly German; on other occasions it stands in for English, Czech, maybe French, and Latin.

This is particularly weird in a scene where Dieter, who only speaks German, needs Tenma to translate what a British couple is saying, even though we hear them all speaking the same language.

You'd also notice that there's an awful lot of locals in Prague, Czech Republic, who apparently speak fluent German (if not all of them).

Tenma's father wanted him to take over the family clinic at his brother's expense, which Tenma didn't want. He came across one of Dr. Heinemann's papers and seized the chance to come to Germany, which fractured his relationship with his family. Tenma ends up writing many of his boss's papers for him, while recieving no credit. He ends up in a relationship with Eva, who didn't treat him very well. Then he finds out his boss is corrupt and got one of his patients killed. His boss shows no remorse and cancels important research Tenma was working on so that he can write a speech for him. Then Johan comes along, and after a Sadistic Choice from hell over whom to save, Tenma's career gets wrecked seemingly beyond repair. To top it off, that paper that originally inspired him wasn't even written by the director.

Johan is born from a eugenics experiment, with his father implied to have been killed soon after his birth. He and his sister grow up rather isolated, before Bonaparta makes his mother choose who to give up, with her reaction seriously messing him up. His mother is taken away as well, leaving him alone in the house with only Bonaparta's books for company. When his sister comes back and tells him what happened, Johan internalizes her experiences and thinks they happened to him. They run away together, with Johan killing anyone who tries to help them out of paranoia. They end up passing out from exhauston and starvation. Then Johan is separated from his sister again and sent to 511 Kinderheim. Aside from experiencing everything the others did there, he was drugged and feared that he would lose his memories of his sister. He ended up inducing everyone else into a riot to escape. He gets reunited with his sister, and they're sent to live with the Lieberts, only for Bonaparta to show up one night. Johan is convinced that he is there to harm them, and ends up shooting the Lieberts dead. When his sister discovers this, he asks her to shoot him. She does, and it's later implied that he may have turned out different had she not done so.

Truth in Television: A Japanese neurosurgeon living in Germany is actually not as strange as you might think. Japan has roughly the same number of neurosurgeons as the United States, a country with more than twice its population. For that reason, many of them end up going abroad in search of work. The two most common places they go are Germany and the US.

Turn the Other Cheek: Tenma for the most part and Anna/Nina eventually. Completely averted with the twins' mother.

The Villain Makes the Plot: Notable aversion. Johan is not the only clever aspect of this series, nor does he often appear on screen.

Villainous Breakdown: Despite assuring himself that everything is going according to plan, Petr Capek starts to grow increasingly paranoid after The Baby is killed, eventually killing his own bodyguard in a fit of paranoia. An action which is later avenged by the bodyguard's comrades, who shoot down Capek.

To Karl Schuwald's foster parents, the Neumanns. Though it can be assumed that after Hans Georg Schubert officially accepted Karl as his biological son, Karl's foster parents probably accepted it.

The couple Johan stayed with in Munich. Reichwein warns them that they'll likely end up being killed like all of the others. Whether it happened or not is never mentioned, but it can be assumed that it did.

There's also Gustof, who is never mentioned again after he's taken to the hospital, as is Christof.

The woman pretending to be Roberto's wife is never scene again after she helped to torch the library.

Muller's new family after his death: he kills Roberto's henchmen while rescuing Nina, but there's no knowledge of whether there were any repercussions against them for his actions, as Roberto DID threaten Muller by using his family against him just hours before; Nina might have told them to flee, but it's not known.

Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: Roberto favors this approach when it comes to Nina, Tenma, or anyone in Johan's way, but apparently gets overruled.

Wicked Cultured: Johan, Kristof, and various doctors dabbling in eugenics and brain-washing.

Will They or Won't They?: Between Nina leaning on Tenma every two panels and Tenma telling Nina that he has nothing to live for without her, it's definitely there. Even if you're disturbed by the age difference. To a lesser extent, Karl and Lotte.

Regarding Tenma and Nina, after what they've been through together, one is left not really caring about the age difference anyway. In the end Nina is ecstatic when she hears that Tenma is coming back to Germany.

Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Johan for Karl, Lotte, and Nina. In Another Monster, Karl reveals that despite everything Johan put him through, Karl could never bring himself to hate Johan as he believed Johan's tears for him were real. Lotte, similarly, says that she doesn't hate him and that she believes Johan couldn't bring himself to kill Karl because Karl wanted things — family and a home — that Johan could never have nor understand. Nina, for her part, believes that had she not shot Johan, had she been able to forgive him, he would not have continued killing.

World Half Full: The world of Monster is filled with some very nasty things, but there's a lot of hope if you know where to look.

"World of Cardboard" Speech: At one point in the anime, Lunge holds Tenma at gunpoint and tells him how he (mistakenly) arrived at the conclusion that he is the killer, one of the points of his reasoning being that, since Tenma is a surgeon, Lunge expects him to be gifted with the exact type of cold efficiency he reads in the killer's M.O.. Tenma immediately denies that, underlining that bearing the reponsability of life and death over his patients makes him anything but cold.

Worthy Opponent: Johan seems to see Tenma and Nina this way, since they're pretty much the only two people he doesn't want dead. It sure doesn't stop him from trying to destroy their lives, though.

You Meddling Kids: Pedrov/Biermann tells Grimmer the 511 Kinderheim project would have worked out just great, if his successors hadn't let the anomalousEnfant Terrible get out of hand. Also played straighter with Dieter's and the orphanage boys' interventions.

You Monster!: Quite a few characters to Johan. It's right there in the title.

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